Funny stuff, Tiny!

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Assist goes to you; you put the phrase in my head ....

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Power is always in the hands of the masses of men. What oppresses the masses is their own ignorance, their own short-sighted selfishness.
- Henry George

Goddamn DT, dont take this the wrong way but I hope you never find work if it means you wont have the time to come up with gems like that.

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Proud member of the white guy grievance committee

It aint the six minutes. Its what happens in those six minutes.

I'm not sure a spider has the same sentience as a dog. However, you're asking if someone who enjoys inflicting violence and torture is morally worse than an idiot with a drinking problem? Perhaps so.

Kinda with IB on this. People seem to be completely removing intent from the equation, and focusing only on result.

If someone slips on ice on your driveway and dies, what should your punishment be? Remember, someone died!!

And you seem to be focusing on intention to the exclusion of result.

If you try to kill a spider but fail, what should your punishment be?

Remember, you tried to kill a living thing!

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And some people seem to ignore the fact that Little and Stallworth were commiting a crime that resulted in death of a person.

Are you commiting a crime by having ice on your driveway? No.
Are you commiting a crime by driving drunk? Yes.

Surely you see the difference.

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Sentience is the ability to feel or perceive. If that's a criterion, then that introduces vegetables and the severely mentally retarded ..... probably not the path you're looking for there. Bad.

Anyone that thinks killing 1 dog or 1,000 dogs is worse than killing 1 person is someone I would vehemently disagree with and perhaps even wonder what the heck is wrong with them.

Inspired parody song aside, I seriously have no frigging idea why this is actually being debated, let alone why the introduction of completely arbitrary criteria by one or another is assumed to have anything to do with anything.

The only thing unsettling about seeing Mike Vick last night was that cunt-log Gruden saying that Vick should be the player of the decade; if Vick sent one of his former dogs to take that assbag's throat, I'd be fine if they put the psycho (Vick) on currency - whether it be legal tender or the happy horseshit from Luxembourg or the Franklin Mint.

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Power is always in the hands of the masses of men. What oppresses the masses is their own ignorance, their own short-sighted selfishness.
- Henry George

i have an interesting case for IB about the difference of human vs. animal when it comes to legality and prosecution for assault.

back in '04, a kid i went to high school with who was a total jock asshole who beat up kids smaller than him on a regular basis, turned himself into authorities (by his girlfriend's urgings apparently) after sodomizing a pit bull (!) with a liquor bottle. i unfortunately know more of the details because this happened at his friend's house who also happened to be friends with a friend of mine. essentially, the guy went into his buddy's garage where the pit bull was in his kennel I guess, and took a bottle of Cuervo or something like it, shoved it up the dog's anus, and began...you know.

he wasn't caught doing it but his friend said he could hear yelping coming from the garage that sounded like his dog was hurt or something. the kid said he didn't know what he was talking about, and things went along normal.

i guess he told his GF about it, and she told him to turn himself in. so he did.

he was charged with two counts of engaging in sexual conduct with an animal, class four felonies, and a third count of criminal damage to property. He was found not guilty of sexually assaulting the animal, but guilty of criminal damage to property.

property. now if this were a person that this kid had done this to, would "property" ever come into it if this were any time past the 1860's?

i tried to find updates past 2004 about this case but couldn't. from what i remember reading back then, he was not sentenced to 1 to 3 years in prison. most of his sentencing included substance abuse counseling and whatnot.

in the eyes of the law, in this case, a dog < human. no?

Well said, DT. The intentionality police in this thread seem to have lost their sense of proportion, creating a false equivalency between human and animal life. If the two are to be regarded as equals, then every meat-eater on the planet should be immediately prosecuted for his or her complicity in genocide.

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Are McRib's considered meat?

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This is my signature...

I would bet that almost every member of this board has driven a car while impaired & thus had the potential to have an accident & hurt someone. I will almost guarantee that no board members have ever entertained the thought of killing dogs with your bare hands & a brick wall.
See the difference?

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CSFMB 2014 Nascar Pick 'em Champion

We don’t have a trillion-dollar debt because we haven’t taxed enough; we have a trillion-dollar debt because we spend too much. — Ronald Reagan

Except for all the times where I've said that animal life is less than human life.

Which, of course, no one said they are

I think humans have a responsibility to kill animals as humanely as possible and use as much of the body as possible. There is benefit gained from animal use for nourishment beyond wanton cruelty.

All of this is going to depend upon the assignment of value you place on each life. At one extreme, some have claimed that all animals = human life ("a rat is a pig is a dog is a boy") The other extreme is that animal life is valueless and that animals are pure property. I think both are intuitively wrong, and very few people subscribe to either view.

In between, there are all types of value assignments you can make. On a scale of 0 to 100 where humans are worth 100, you might think dogs are worth 99, or 80, or 50, or 20, or 1. You might think insects fall below dogs, or are equal to dogs (you might think they are greater, but I've never heard anyone argue beyond that they are equal).

As for "how many animals does it take until it equals killing one human being," it could merely be that intentionally and unethically killing a human being is the sine qua non of immorality, which no other immoral act could equal. There is a huge gulf between accidentally and purposefully killing a human, as 24 Guy's hypothetical points out.

Finally, I think the law is useful for pointing out what people believe about morality, but things are not immoral because they are against the law. They are against the law because they are immoral. Something doesn't become immoral just because it is illegalized. We can say that, because something is illegal, people think it is immoral, but you still need to make an independent assessment of whether that is so.

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Fire Phil Emery

So maybe I don't understand your argument, IB. Are you saying that one needs to gauge the immorality of an act by judging both its intention and the person or object against whom or which it is committed or not?

Earlier it sounded to me like you were arguing that intentionality determines moral value. Now it sounds like you are adopting a fuller contextual reading of morality.

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Wow; that would appear to be one helluva corner to paint yourself into - irrespective of the actual invalidity of the supposed plurality of truth.

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Power is always in the hands of the masses of men. What oppresses the masses is their own ignorance, their own short-sighted selfishness.
- Henry George

OMFG PHRASE OF THE YEAR!!!!@

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I had thought that was my position all along. The object counts for something, and the intention counts for something as well.

Not really. I'm not making any claim that all law is or should be based in morality. What I'm saying is that if we legalized rape or murder tomorrow, those acts wouldn't become moral. We made them illegal because we regard them as immoral. we have reasons for regarding them as immoral beyond "they are illegal."

We can--and should, as a society--debate whether things or moral or not. But just pointing out that they are illegal doesn't get us very far, except insofar as it suggests other people think it is immoral. Society may think it is moral because there are deep intuitions as to something being immoral...or society could think something is immoral for really stupid reasons. But IT IS LAW doesn't get us far.

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Fire Phil Emery

But if you argue that a dog killer is morally worse than a drunk driver who kills another person as a result of recklessness or indifference to human life, then it seems to me that your stated position is not actually your position.

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I think it depends upon how you view that bolded part of the quote. I don't see drunk driving as true indifference to human life. I see it as negligent and stupid behavior, but I think it's more a matter of bad decisionmaking than indifference to human life. Your mileage may vary depending upon how badly you see the underlying DUI offense (and there's probably a difference between buzzed and pants-on-head drunk, which would come a lot closer to indifference).

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Fire Phil Emery

Do you think a person who is "pants-on-head drunk" should be held responsible for his or her actions while in such a state?

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Don't take it personally.

Yes. Being responsible for your actions, vs. being morally reprehensible, can be two different things.

But Tiny, no. When comparing equivalent acts vs. a human and vs. a dog, the person committing the acts against a person is worse. But we're not talking about equivalent acts, we're talking about direct intent vs. a dog, compared to a lesser or lack of intent against a person.

Of course gross negligence has to be weighed vs. intent as well, as drunk driving is known to end up with fatalities. I just don't think it's a simple as saying, dog OK, person not OK, end of story.




I think there's a balance to be found between the intent and the result. Sometimes they are way out of whack. A kind old gentleman who steps on the wrong pedal and runs over a pedestrian, vs. a guy who punts someone's poodle multiple times until it's lifeless... I'll forgive the old man and put the dog killer in jail.

As to spiders, I don't place much value on their lives myself, but if someone thoroughly enjoys making living things suffer, I guess I think there's something wrong with them.

Does the fact Little was arrested again on suspicion DUI again after killing that lady make him a bigger douchebag than Vick?

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Again, for those who ignore basic points, the first question is very simple .... human or animal?

If it's human, all further debate is invalid and further discussion is not necessary.

HUMAN > animal

That's it. Nothing more to it.

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Power is always in the hands of the masses of men. What oppresses the masses is their own ignorance, their own short-sighted selfishness.
- Henry George

Let's say that what you say is 100% true and there is no grey area.

Why is it that dog fighting is illegal whereas boxing and MMA fighting is legal?

If you only care that human > animal then shouldn't dog fighting be legal and/or boxing and MMA be as illegal as dog fighting.

Now, I know the answer will be "humans choose to fight" but we are operating under the premise that human > animal is the only thing that matters. Clearly, in regards to fighting, dogs are actually given more protections than humans.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

That being the case, why is it often considered rape when some assholes film themselves gangbanging a woman who is clearly "pants-on-head drunk" and appears to be a willing participant? Aren't we suggesting that she wasn't responsible for her actions? And yet, after all that nastiness is over we expect her to have the faculty to know she shouldn't get behind the wheel. I'm not sure what the answer is, but that seems illogical and inconsistent to me.

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Don't take it personally.

Yes.


He should be in jail for life

Oh for chrissakes ...... first, you answered your inane question yourself, ya dingleberry ... and again, no further modifiers are needed after the human/animal question. With enough authentic frontier gibberish, one could eventually state that a wine enema is the only responsible way to get tanked.

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Power is always in the hands of the masses of men. What oppresses the masses is their own ignorance, their own short-sighted selfishness.
- Henry George

MMA losers aren't electricuted or otherwise murdered. At least, not that I've seen.

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"Play until it hurts, then play until it hurts to not play."
http://soundcloud.com/darkside124 HOF 2013, MM Champion 2014

Interesting gimmick for a match. Let's make it happen.

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